Make The Most of Your Autumn Garden

As the sun sets on another summer, you might be tempted to sit back in your living room, ignore your garden and hope the untended weeds don’t creep in through your window. But, although the deckchairs might be packed away and browned leaves cover the grass, leaving your garden unattended is just asking for trouble when spring rears its head.

In fact, the autumn season is the perfect time to prepare your garden for the sunny weather’s return.

So, what do you have to do to keep your garden in shape before the frost cometh?

Build the best

If you’re not planning to sit in the garden for a few months (unless you want to look like Jack Nicholson at the end of The Shining), you can make a few major adjustments without yearning for a space to sunbathe.

For a start, try an orangery to lounge in the sun without worrying about wind or rain ruining your relaxation. Orangeries are essentially a more luxurious variation on the conservatory, letting in more light thanks to its expansive number of windows.

But if you want to feel the sun on your skin outside, then you could invest in a stylish patio to keep tables and chairs outside permanently. Both of these installations will only take, at most, a few months to implement, so they can be ready for you as soon as the spring kicks in.

If you plant your bulbs early, they’ll come into full bloom by the time the sunnier seasons hit. Aim for a variation throughout your garden, while also ensuring your plants aren’t clashing. It’s a keen balancing act but, with the right colour scheme, you’ll have a garden ready to blossom at the first lick of spring light.

Rot your way to success

On the face of it, shoving rotten pieces of food, eggshells, leaves and twigs in a box and letting them rot together might seem a bit disgusting – but when a gardener calls it composting, it’s barely even viewed as weird.

The perfect compost heap has a varied mixture of waste types, all the better to pack in as many nutrients as you can. Once your compost is rich enough, you can use it to top-up your soil – especially useful for planting bulbs in the autumn.